


Serenity Review

by yourlibrarian



Series: Reviews [13]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Meta, Reviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6697426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first take on Serenity during a preview screening in 2005 with guest Ron Glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serenity Review

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted June 24, 2005

Oddly enough despite the sellout status there were quite a few empty seats and the theater only held about 300 people so this really wasn't as big a crowd as we were expecting. A few people were in costumes, but "Firefly" is pretty casual when it comes to costumes, (Adam Baldwin spends most of the movie in a variety of t-shirts that look like they could have come from local merchandise giveaway promotions) so maybe many more people were and I failed to notice this. Before the movie started all the guys who had come in Hawaiian shirts (a la Wash) were asked to come up front for a joint picture. I'm not sure where it will be posted -- firefly.net I guess. There was also a singalong of "Hero of Canton" and the "Firefly" theme song, and a show of hands for how far people had come for the movie (Michigan seemed to be the winner, though 2 other people from farther happened to be in town). 

At the door of the theater were 2 folks checking handbags. Though, honestly, I could have had anything in my bag since the guy didn't touch it, and it was so full that later on when searching it I came across my convention badge from the Michigan con. I'd wondered where it ended up. We all had to wave to the Universal guy in the projection booth who was apparently to spirit the film off as soon as it ended to get it back to L.A. 

About 15 minutes before the movie started a Universal rep asked folks to put away cameras and gave a brief discussion of piracy. (Piracy bad, tree pretty). I missed this since I took the "Go now while you can" part of the speech seriously. And may I say that if all bathroom hand dryers actually put as much power into drying as this theater's did, not only would people use them and hence save many trees, but the entire electrical grid of the city might collapse which makes it a bit of a wash.

Then just before the movie started, out came Ron Glass. He looked well and mentioned he was from Evansville, IN. He said he'd chat with us after the film, said Joss had a few words for us, and hoped we'd enjoy things. He was on the phone with someone just before the film started, maybe Joss in Riverside? Joss recorded a little intro to the film [which you can read here](http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=10446), and had such a cute little smile at the end that you could really see the joy he had in being able to present this project.

The film looks beautiful, great special effects, lovely exteriors, the cast all looks wonderful on the big screen. It also has all the hallmarks of a Joss story, both in its strengths and weaknesses. The strengths, are, I think, as follows:

(1) **It rushes you from one emotion to the next.** Joss has, may I say, emotional pacing as well as camera pacing in the film. It never seemed slow to me, but then I also had emotional investment in it and grew up in a time where I didn't need my attention distracted every 30 seconds to remain focused on something. So I don't know how other people will feel about that. For anyone accustomed to Joss' other work, the idea of having an episode combining humor, horror, action and tragedy is not new. There's certainly a lot of this in the film. I thought it interesting that they used Jayne for so much comic relief. Not that he didn't have that role in the series as well but my guess is he'll do even more of this if there's a next film.

(2) **It packs a lot of punches** especially for fans. Man, two major character deaths AND the fear as the climax played out that Joss was pulling a Hamlet? I don't know what else will be said about it but I doubt that "predictable" will be one of the descriptors.

(3) **Firefly never looked better** which is saying something since it was a very attractive looking show. I thought the opening effects were beautiful and it was lovely to see the ship given so much attention. Also interesting that the credits were so subtle. Figuring that so many in the cast are unknowns anyway, there was no sense in bothering to do flashy credits. Sean Maher really got to shine in this film, especially at the beginning when he brings about River's escape. During the series run I always thought he was the weakest actor but I thought he carried his part off well here.

(4) **Joss has written great dialogue** In other words, the world is still rotating. All the characters had memorable lines. Among my favorites: Inara "Spend an hour with him!", Simon "Leave the others to die", Kaylee, "Forget that, I'm going to live!", Jayne, "I might live!", Wash, "I am a leaf on the wind" and River's expression when Simon asks "Am I speaking to Miranda?"

(5) **Profoundly affects the "Firefly" storyline**. There is no retreading here at all for anyone who watched the series and minimal dialogue and situations are used to establish who the characters are in relation to each other and the story. Certainly some questions were answered, such as will Kaylee and Simon ever get together and will River ever improve plus, of course, what are some of the reasons she's been so traumatized. And of course any future Zoe storyline will be very changed. Mal and Inara are, however, still stuck in neutral. And unless there's a prequel we'll never know what was up with Book. My guess is he was an assassin, the same as the one in the film. And by the way, are ALL Alliance assassins African-Americans? What's up with that?

### The weaknesses

(1) **Familiar habits**. If you know other works by Whedon then several events, storylines and resolutions will seem to follow a certain pattern. Also, while I don't know anyone who can do better comedy than Joss, he also has a weakness for melodrama that needs to be kept in check and isn't always. (Fred/Wes in "A Hole in the World" is, to my mind, the worst example, and I thought that Wes's death scene could also have been a little tighter). There were several points in the film where I felt this weighed the film down and could have used a lighter hand. 

Joss seems determined to give Kaylee a happy ending. She's sweet and innocent, therefore she must be rewarded for this. Of course Fred didn't get a reward though her death and rebirth certainly was a gift to the actress who played her. Book's death scene seemed a little overplayed though not due to the dialogue. I'm faulting the directing on that one. By the time we get to Simon's possible death and his talk with River, it was verging on maudlin. Joss should have taken a tip from himself in "The Body." We never see Joyce die, we just see her dead and the effect is more profound. Of course, if Giles ever dies in Buffy's arms I daresay he'll have dialogue. And, of course, we have so many people dying that they can't all be the same, can they? I felt there was a bit too much of River in crazy mode. 

On the plus side, we now know what Buffy would look like if she ever got the big screen treatment. Will Summer play the lead in "Fray" should that ever get made? She's obviously well suited to it. The Trio returns in the form of Mr. Universe but not, I thought, to good effect. Loved the Buffybot shoutout (and found it very poignant that he died in her arms, even aside from the need to leave a message), but there was something about his character that seemed very out of place, almost Mary Sue'ish in nature. I don't know why, but more than being a deus ex machina, he seemed like a fanfic authorial stand-in who pops in briefly to solve a plot problem and is off again. I mean, think about his name even, 'from whence the universe sprang'? Maybe it's just my bugaboo. 

(2) **Not everyone gets much screen time** though I don't know as I really call that a weakness since with 9 cast members anything else would have been impossible. They all have their moment. I couldn't help thinking that Joss is essentially thinning the herd of his cast. Apparently Ron is semi-retired and Alan Tudyk very busy so writing the two of them out seemed a natural choice for meta as well as storyline reasons. Frankly Book never had much screen time, and not much effect on the overall storyline. His death made sense for the plot but was also a bit of a cliche. Wash's death was, however, shocking and, I thought, Zoe's reaction was wonderfully written. Mal's final lines to her about the ship seemed to me clearly about how Zoe herself was holding up. (And must say Gina Torres looked magnificent in that burial scene.)

(3) **The camera work was occasionally annoying** Both Mike and I found that the quick pan was often too quick and especially on a large screen is somewhat disorienting. Too often, we felt, we weren't sure what was happening on screen or it was just visually unpleasant. There was one moment in particular when the camera swung to Wash around the dining table that I felt a slight case of vertigo. I also wasn't clear what had been done to the project manager by the assassin at the beginning of the film so I didn't know what had happened to Mal at first either. 

(4) **Plotting is not Joss's strong point** To me it is this last one that is likely to be a killer for the film. I found the storyline disjointed. There were several things going on in there that did come out to a whole but it didn't feel like that during the course of the film. I had my interest in the characters to maintain my attention, but I wonder how much investment they'll be able to build with new people. I also understood why he mentioned that the film had no clear concept for marketing purposes. I'm not sure the plot does either.

I keep trying to put my finger on what the problem is. Technically it all links together -- River's abduction and conditioning leads to the whole Miranda mystery, which explains the Reavers and also deals a blow to the Alliance. But perhaps part of the problem is that "the Alliance" is so nebulous in this film. I mean, I watched the series and even there, aside from 2 episodes, the Alliance problem was more a backdrop for the personal stories than anything else. Whereas here, the nature of the Alliance is at the center of the film's plot, yet aside from being evil people who hunt down and kill innocent people (through a hired assassin) we don't really get much of a picture of them. Moreover, the feeling I got from "Firefly" was that it was mostly about how people make day to day decisions balancing personal interest with the greater good. But that message seems lost here in the midst of all the slam-bang action and major character drama. "Firefly" was, in many ways, quiet, whereas "Serenity" is (anthithetically to its name) very loud.

On the one hand, I really like what Joss is saying -- that the Alliance are fundamentalists who can not tolerate diversity of thought or behavior and are, as River puts it right at the beginning, "Meddlers. We are in their homes, their lives, their heads" (or words to that effect). Or as Mal later puts it, (again paraphrased) "You want my kind to lay down and die." Even in the promotional material, Joss states "It's about how much you can take, how much you can have taken from you, both personally and ideologically, before you have to turn around and fight." Or, put another way, before you realize you can not just focus on your day to day problems but must get politically active and throw the budding dictators out of office.

However I felt that it was one theme too many. I thought it would have been better to explain what the plan for River was. On "Firefly" it seemed as if she was being experimented on for her mental abilities. In the movie, we see her turn into a Slayer. Where did she get the strength? Now it's physical AND mental? Presumably she ends up knowing about Miranda from mind-reading one of her visitors. But I think it would have made more sense to find out more about Blue Sun and their conditioning program, maybe finding and freeing other victims. In other words, making the story more personal, and by extension, more consistent. Dialogue-wise we are told Mal realizes he can't fight the Alliance, but he can try to protect and save this one girl. However the girl ends up fairly able to take care of herself and her story gets buried in the larger "get the signal out" abstraction. 

I also think a "save the kids" storyline is something an audience can relate to more easily and in the hands of a good writer (which Joss is) it needn't be schmaltzy. The risk is that it will mimic the end of Buffy: preternaturally gifted kids are rescued and scattered throughout the 'verse to wage their own independent battles against the Alliance. Simon and River leave the ship at last to mentor some of these prodigies, maybe using Inara's chapterhouse (or whatever it's called) and Book's hideaway as secret academies. Future movies could look at the results of that action, or it could take on a completely different plotline. Or even have Simon and River return with a plan to attack the Alliance by using the Miranda project to discredit them, and Mal and company are reluctantly roped into aiding them. In other words, dividing this plotline between two films.

As a final point about the movie, I thought the last 30 seconds was a bit awkward. It went by too fast, though it was funny once I caught on to what had happened.

### Q&A

As a final point to the evening, boy was the Q&A with Ron Glass afterwards awkward. For starters, his part was very small (he filmed for 3 days) and his character died! Sheesh, what do you say? There was complete silence in the theater during his death scene. By comparison with Wash there were laughs followed by horrified gasps. And, as someone mentioned during the Q&A, once 2 characters were killed you realized anything might happen. Mal could very well die with the mission uncompleted. As someone eventually said "We're quiet because we're still taking it in." 

Naturally, Ron was asked about his reaction to being written out and he held out hope for a prequel or, as Joss told him, "Anything can happen in the universe." Someone also asked him about the cliche that the black guy always dies. He turned that away by saying he was from Evansville and he didn't think that way. Another person asked how the other actors reacted to his character's death and whether he had known beforehand or discovered it while reading the script. At first he joked that Joss had called him saying the script was being sent over and that there was "good news and not so good news." Then he said Joss had warned him before he read it. He also said the other actors put their feelings into their onscreen portrayals, but then offscreen just went "Fuuuuuuuuck!" He also hinted that in the movie's final cut there might yet be more changes. 

Several people asked him about his role, Book's backstory, what he thought about acting in the ensemble, about acting with them again, what his reaction to the script had been, what reactions the other actors had, etc. One person apparently had parents who had known him in high school, having acted with him in "John Brown's Body" and had told their son stories. He sssshhh'ed the guy, and when he told Ron he was happy to finally meet him, Ron replied "Obviously they've been telling the right stories!" He was asked what he was doing now and he talked about working with the Miss USA pageant, being on a lecture circuit and having to write an essay about how education has affected his life. He said he got the assignment in October, had holiday plans and so postponed working on it, and is now realizing he still has nothing written! He had spent several hours that day with a former 5th grade teacher who is still working at a high school.

He then said goodbye and as we left we were all given keychains, a flyer and a fold-out brochure on the film. In the lobby there was a poster for Joss' birthday which we signed. And that was it for the evening.


End file.
